Gallifrey Burning
by littlegoldenleaf
Summary: Short drabble set during the Time War, with the echo of Clara seen on Gallifrey.


_(Author Note: Short drabble about the echo of Clara that we briefly see on Gallifrey, set during the Time War.)_

I'm Clara. To you, I'd appear to be in my mid-twenties, ages are so much... simpler for humans. I was human once. It's complicated, and I'm sure you've heard that story before. I was born to save the Doctor.  
I can't remember how I ended up here. It's all a little strange, like you're suddenly living a whole new life, yet it feels like you've always been this person. I can feel the faint presence of millions of echoes of myself, scattered along his timeline, all connected like a web to one point. Me. Yet not me, because I'm just an echo too. A ghost. No, the one that connects to all of us is that simple little human, Clara Oswald, just an ordinary girl, yet so extraordinary. Makes me proud that I'm a part of her, I guess.  
To tell the truth, I'm not even sure how this is possible, that one human could split herself into millions of echoes, including one Gallifreyan Clara, a completely different species, an echo that refuses to fade. Because that's what I do, different versions of myself dying over and over, just to save him. But that's not why I'm here. Not this Clara.

I've helped him, more than he's realized. I watch over him, keep him safe, but there hasn't been much I've needed to do. I chose him his TARDIS, the one that he'd grow to love so much, that feisty girl who I wanted for a TARDIS, yet she'd never liked me. Took her out on a few adventures, helping the mechanics in their attempt to repair her navigation system, but she's stubborn. She wouldn't have ever worked, not for me. But she was unlocked for him, welcomed him with open arms... or, well, doors, a match made in heaven. If that's possible between a man and a living machine. He'll forget my face, just a fleeting memory that hardly seems significant now, but later he'll wonder about that mysterious girl who guided him to that particular TARDIS, the one that he'd come to rely on so much, the one constant thing in his life that never lets him down. And then one day he'll have stopped wondering about that girl, and he will have forgotten me, and he'll tell stories about how he stole a box and ran away, his TARDIS who stole him back.  
My Doctor. He's changed so much over the years, and yet somehow despite all the differences, I knew him instantly when I saw his first self. So young, yet to humans he seems old. There's the faint linger of a memory of his eleventh self, one I cling on to and hope that it'll never fade. That's where it all began, with him.

I'm hundreds of years older now, and he's so old now too. Not as old as I once knew him, but it's like he's a completely different man, one filled with darkness and rage, soon to be replaced with bitterness and regret. I know what's coming, what's going to happen, still remember slight parts from that past life, the one with the book on the Time War that I opened, his name inside it and the events of how he ended the war. I don't remember his name anymore, but I still know that he's going to destroy all of Gallifrey. I'll burn along with all of them, the Time Lords and the Daleks, the Doctor at the heart of the madness, the center of the explosion, and the only one who will leave unharmed. This will be my death, a meaningless one to him, just another name on the long list of the dead, another who died by his hand. He won't know for a very long time about me, who I was and all that I did, all out of love for him. He might not ever find out.  
I'm Clara, a Gallifreyan who chose a human name because at the time I thought it fit perfectly, and then the pieces of the mystery all began to fall into place until I knew who I was. I was born to save the Doctor, and for as long as all these echoes of myself exist, I will continue to save him every time, but this is one time where I am helpless, forced to stand back and watch him and face my own death. I can't save him this time.

_I can't save him from himself._


End file.
